North
Syria experienced two cultural waves from southern Mesopotamia, where complex irrigation agricultural societies developed: Ubaid, in the late sixth and fifth milleniums, and Uruk (first city/first writing) in the mid-fourth millennium. The issue is to isolate diffusion from local processes in the rise of cities. The pervasive Ubaid culture’s mass-produced pottery coincided with a noticeable developing complexity at sites, suggesting diffusion. Some sites, Tell Hamam et Turkman, Tell Brak, Tell Zyadeh in the Jezireh and Tell Kurdu, Ras
Shamra, and Afis in the west have 10-14 Ubaid levels, including granaries (grill buildings).
By 3600 BCE, diffusion from Sumer (the Uruk Ex-pansion/World System) was unequivocal. Habuba Kabira is the quintessential Mesopotamian urban colony: fortifications, tripartite-niched cultic buildings, cone mosaics, beveled-rim bowls, and clay tablets of pre-pictographic style. Other colonies on the Euphrates include Jebel Aruda, Hadidi, Sheik Hasan, Tell el-Haj, Habuba Kabira; in the Syrian Desert, el-Koum. On the other hand, a mixed local and Uruk assemblage characterizes the established sites like Hama, the ‘Amuq, and Tell Brak (the ‘‘Eye Temple’’). The most significant new development is the view that Tell Brak (a 240-acre site with monumental buildings and a hierarchy of hinterland sites) and, possibly, Tell Hamoukar were urban sites before the Uruk expansion. What this signifies is that a local urban trajectory in the dry-farming north (Jezireh) may have paralleled that of the irrigation societies of the south (Sumer). The period ended with the Uruk Collapse c. 3100.
Southern Levant
A different picture emerged locally (c. 4500), as probable ‘chiefdoms’ arose in several of numerous regions, the northern Negev (Shiqmim, Gilat), and the Jordan Valley (Teleilat el-Ghassul). The evidence for developing hierarchies consists of a two-tier settlement pattern, expansive settlements, public sanctuaries, and elaborate ritual; formal cemeteries, trade networks, and craft specialization (ivory, basalt stone Carving, metals, pottery) centering on religious iconography (Figures 3 and 4). The rich corpus of prestige items must indicate a ruling elite. The spectacular Cave of the Treasure (Nahal Mishmar) hoard contained 429 mostly ritualistic copper items (crowns, scepters, maces), generally considered the temple equipment from nearby Ein Gedi, a sacred precinct overlooking the Dead Sea. The Teleilat el-Ghassul temples displayed extraordinary frescoes illustrating mythical figures and an apparent ceremony; at Gilat, a wealth of cultic paraphernalia was recovered in the temple. Nahal Qana’s eight gold ring ingots affirm trade in prestige items with Egypt. As scholars consider the interplay of prestige items, the cult, and metallurgy, they must factor in the recent stunning discovery of the largest copper mine in the Near East (Wadi Feinan in southern Jordan). Still enigmatic are the reasons for this preurban society’s total collapse, c. 3500 BCE, although a destruction layer with Egyptian mace heads (Gilat) is instructive.
World History
